13. Fritz Heider, the founder of attribution theory, emphasized the
distinction between internal and external causes of behavior.
Internal attributions are explanations based on someone’s
attitudes, personality traits, abilities, or other characteristics.
External attributions are explanations based on the situation,
including events that would influence almost anyone. An
example of an internal attribution is saying that your brother
walked to work this morning “because he likes the exercise.”
An external attribution would be that he walked “because his
car wouldn’t start.” Internal attributions are also known as
dispositional (i.e., relating to the person’s disposition). External
attributions are also known as situational (i.e., relating to the
situation).
Harold Kelley proposed that three types of information
influence us to make an internal or external attribution:
Consensus information (how the person’s behavior compares
with other people’s behavior). If someone behaves the same way
you believe other people would in the same situation, you make
an external attribution, recognizing that the situation led to the
behavior. When a behavior seems unusual, you look for an
internal attribution.
Consistency information (how the person’s behavior varies from
one time to the next). If someone almost always seems friendly,
you make an internal attribution (“friendly person”). If
someone’s friendliness varies, you make an external attribution,
such as an event that elicited a good or bad mood.
Distinctiveness (how the person’s behavior varies from one
situation to another). If your friend is pleasant to all but one
individual, you assume that person has done something to
irritate your friend (an external attribution).
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Attributions (slide 2 of 3)
The Actor-Observer Effect
28. educated, middle-class young men, when given power over
others, had quickly abused that power. The implication is that
we shouldn’t blame people who abuse their power, because most
of us would do the same thing in that situation.
Stanley Milgram hypothesized that when an authority figure
gives normal people instructions to do something that might
hurt another person, some of them will obey. To test his
hypothesis, he conducted a landmark experiment, known as the
Milgram Experiment.
Two adult men at a time arrived at the experiment—a real
participant and a confederate of the experimenter pretending to
be a participant. The experimenter told them that in this study
of learning, one participant would be the “teacher” and the other
would be the “learner.” The teacher would read lists of words
through a microphone to the learner, sitting in another room.
The teacher would then test the learner’s memory for the words.
Whenever the learner made a mistake, the teacher was to deliver
an electric shock as punishment. However, the learner never
received shocks, but the teacher was led to believe that he did.
Throughout the experiment, the learner made many mistakes.
The experimenter instructed the teacher to begin by punishing
the learner with the 15-volt switch for his first mistake and
increase by 15 volts for each successive mistake, up to the
maximum of 450 volts.
As the voltage went up, the learner in the next room cried out in
pain. If the teacher asked who would take responsibility for any
harm to the learner, the experimenter replied that he, the
experimenter, would take responsibility but insisted, “while the
shocks may be painful, they are not dangerous.” When the
shocks reached 150 volts, the learner begged to be let out of the
experiment, complaining that his heart was bothering him.
Beginning at 270 volts, he screamed in agony. At 300 volts, he
30. else are equally well informed, you probably will make a better
decision together than either of you would separately. However,
some groups work together better than others do. One study
compared many groups that were asked to make decisions about
moral judgments, visual problems, ways of dividing limited
resources, and so forth. In this study, decisions were best in
groups that cooperated, letting everyone participate about
equally rather than letting one person dominate. Groups with a
high percentage of women usually outperformed groups with
mostly men, who tended to argue and compete.
Groups of people who lean mostly in the same direction on a
given issue often make more extreme decisions than most
people would have made on their own. This phenomenon is
known as group polarization.
Groupthink occurs when members of a cohesive group fail to
express their opposition to a decision for fear of making a bad
impression or harming the cohesive spirit of the group. The
main elements leading to groupthink are overconfidence by the
leadership, underestimation of the problems, and pressure to
conform.
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